Hooda’s Rs.100 crore ad-blitzkrieg jacks up stakes for others

Chandigarh: A Rs.100 crore advertisement blitzkrieg from public money focussed on Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda – clearly aimed at next month’s assembly elections – is forcing other parties in Haryana’s dusty politics to step up their advertisement budgets.
Hooda’s image building by the Haryana government has been ramped up to beat the Election Commission’s (EC) formal announcement of Haryana’s assembly polls. The elections, likely to be held mid-October, are likely to be announced next week by the EC.

The Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) led by Kuldeep Bishnoi, son of former chief minister Bhajan Lal, is not sparing the Hooda government either.

Hooda’s friend-turned-political adversary, former union minister Venod Sharma, with his newly floated party – Jan Chetna Party (JCP), is highlighting alleged favouritism in government jobs by the Hooda government. Sharma was closest to Hooda for most part of nearly a decade till he left the Congress March this year.

Jat-community leader Birender Singh, whose aspirations to become chief minister are well known, recently quit the Congress to join the BJP claiming that the Congress in Haryana had reduced itself to being “Hooda Congress”.